


not turning back for the echo

by bipolaryangxiaolong (rosesandcinnamon)



Series: i lived in salt for leaving you behind [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Angsty Musing But Everything Is Fine, Family Feels, Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28167168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosesandcinnamon/pseuds/bipolaryangxiaolong
Summary: And you shouldn’t be surprised when Yang writes your name on an envelope, putting it in your hands. She looks at you and you look back. There’s a tilt to her eyebrows that means she’s not going to let this go. “You’re coming to my birthday, okay?”..."I’ll be at your party.” She goes back to her markers with a genuine smile, so purely happy just because you said you’d be there, and you have to pretend that her love doesn’t change you.
Relationships: Qrow Branwen & Raven Branwen, Raven Branwen & Yang Xiao Long, Raven Branwen/Taiyang Xiao Long (past)
Series: i lived in salt for leaving you behind [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2063487
Comments: 9
Kudos: 16





	not turning back for the echo

**Author's Note:**

> Halfsies Raven finally makes it to ao3!! This is a revision of my modern au in which Raven still fucks off after Yang is born, but comes back about six years later when Qrow and Tai are struggling after Summer's death. She's not trying to be anyone's mom, but Yang and Ruby are the most loveable babbies and she gets attached. (Spoiler alert: she's absolutely a mom to Yang.) If you have any questions about more details or things that might need clarification, let me know!
> 
>   
> Title from [this](https://astagesetforcatastrophe.tumblr.com/post/190956003118/i-call-it-resurrection-forgiveness-peace). Halfsies tag on my tumblr [here](https://bipolaryangxiaolong.tumblr.com/tagged/halfsies-raven).

It’s mid-July. The weather has settled into a heat that seems like it’ll never clear. You’re grateful for air conditioning and cold water. You’re also grateful for the six months of distance between you and everything you’ve been healing from. Sometimes you blink and wonder how you turned into a person who cares about things like taxes and cooking and therapy. Sometimes you blink and wonder how you’re not dead. Your therapist doesn’t like that train of thought but, for real, how are you not dead in a ditch like five times over? But you know It’s not productive to entertain that thought, because as you’ve begrudgingly accepted, it’s your job to keep yourself alive.

You’re not the only person who’s accepted that lately. At the same time that you were getting back into Normal Person life, Qrow was dragging Tai to therapy. He’s been better lately. More present. Which unfortunately means more of the two of you loudly ignoring each other, but it’s not as if you can fault him for that. You’ll follow whatever boundaries he sets. You owe him much more than that, but it’s a start. Ultimately, you just want him to get back on his feet. He’s been talking about getting ready for the school year with enthusiasm. You’re glad that he’s feeling more like himself. His daughters need him. You and Qrow need to be able to _not_ live in his house anymore. Well, that’s mostly you.

His birthday was a few days ago and -- you suppose two exes could be getting along worse than you are. He even responded when you said _happy birthday_ as the girls mobbed him with pancakes and handmade cards. You and Qrow had helped them make both breakfast and marker scribbles on folded construction paper. It had even been _your_ idea. You might be the kind of heartless monster who leaves your fiance and newborn baby and brother and best friend without warning, but you're not the kind of heartless monster who forgets birthdays.You’re fucking trying, okay?

A marker rolls across to your hand and Yang almost slaps you trying to stop it; you’re glad she’s distracted you from all that. She sits across from you, adding her own drawings to her party invitations, while you and Qrow put them in envelopes. It’s mostly the ritual of the thing. None of these will be mailed. You’re learning that rituals and making things special is important for kids. It’s funny, almost, how everything becomes a whole production. Going to the park every day at the same time. The right snacks at the right occasion. Baths before bed. And parties. The five-years-younger and more misguided version of yourself in your head sulks. She thinks it’s fucking ridiculous that you’ve let yourself become so wrapped up in domesticity. Wasn’t it the very thing you ran from in the first place? You look up and watch the focus on Yang’s face as she picks a new color. Ruby says something. Qrow replies absently. Did you really run from this? It should be a simple answer, but it’s not.

And you shouldn’t be surprised when Yang writes your name on an envelope, putting it in your hands. She looks at you and you look back. There’s a tilt to her eyebrows that means she’s not going to let this go. “You’re coming to my birthday, okay?”

“Well, I was thinking about taking you to the waterpark,” you offer. “Just you and me.”

She considers it for a second, you can see it in her face. The waterpark is a real temptation. “No, you have to come to my birthday. It’s a _party_ ,” she says. You consider that stubbornness might be genetic, in which case, hers must have come mostly from you. “You can still take me to the waterpark though,” she adds with a winning smile.

You laugh, roll your eyes. “We’ll see about that.” You lift your gaze to where Tai is starting dinner. He doesn’t look at you. Qrow makes a face when you glance back at him. “But I’ll be at your party.” She goes back to her markers with a genuine smile, so purely happy just because you said you’d be there, and you have to pretend that her love doesn’t change you.

You and Qrow go grocery shopping after dinner, Tai staying to watch a movie with the girls and get them winding down for bedtime. You usually hate the whole task of grocery shopping, but it’s not too bad a job. There’s less people at this time of day, which is always a good thing for you. And without the kids, you don’t get weird looks. Plus, you and Qrow get to be stupid like you always used to. He hip checks you out of the way to grab a jar of pasta sauce as you stare at the brands; if you let yourself forget for a second, it feels like Summer could be trailing after you with her grocery list, like Tai could be distracted by the spicy snacks an aisle back. You don’t forget. But it’s nice to know the possibility is there.

You’re back at the house and pulling boxes of snacks from crinkly paper bags when it occurs to you. “Speaking of birthdays, should I be doing something during Yang’s birthday? Since I’m some kind of adult?”

Qrow laughs a little. ”Yeah, sure. It’s probably a good thing to have someone else around, especially since Nora is coming over.” He hands you juice cartons for you to put in the fridge.

“I can stay inside and make sure nobody gets lost in the bathroom,” you suggest, and immediately wonder who the fuck you think you are. A grownup? Someone to be trusted around children? Oh God.

“That's not a bad idea. You can man the snack table, Tai can be outside with the water balloons. I can go in between if anyone needs anything.” Qrow continues to unpack groceries. You find yourself staring into the fridge. Where are you? What year is it? Whose life are you living? It can't be yours. This all has to be impossible. “Close the fridge,” Qrow sighs, in his I’m-Not-A-Dad Dad Voice. Stepping back, you let the door swing closed.

“Sounds good,” you manage, and ignore the weird look he gives you. You’ve already mentioned how unreal everything feels to your therapist. It might not be a bad idea to also tell Qrow, but you don’t even know how to start. He elbows you and you shove him. Even if they’re surreal, things are still okay.

It’s much later, after bathtime, after the girls are in bed. A door opens and you find yourself with a smile. You’re trying to be better about things like bedtime and rules and respecting Tai’s parenting, but you know that Yang likes this time too much to take it from her. She stops in the edge of your vision, as usual, somehow shy even though this is normal.

"Raven?"

“Five minutes, firecracker, then back to bed.” She fits into her usual place at your side, blonde head on your shoulder. Usually, she’ll pass out here with you. Tonight, you don’t realize you should have turned off your show until her small frame starts shaking. You glance down and she’s crying, big tears rolling down her cheeks. “Yang,” you say, heart already aching. She scoots closer and you hold her more tightly. “What’s wrong?” Another mother might add a term of endearment, a _honey_ or _sweetheart_ , something to express their affection. Summer would have. It doesn’t happen as easily for you. You fumble to find the mute button on the remote.

"I miss Mom," she says between quiet sobs.

"Oh, kiddo." You squeeze her in the half-hug. "I do too."

"You do?" She turns to look at you, teary eyes and snotty nose and a sad mouth. "No one talks about it."

“I miss her every day.” You want to continue: _I miss her when I look at you. I miss her when I look at Ruby. I miss her when I’m proud of you or myself or Qrow or Tai. I never say it because I miss her constantly._ You know you can’t say any of that. “It’s okay to be sad. It’s hard to do things, especially big things like birthdays, without her.” You won’t call yourself ‘good with kids’ but you’ve been around them enough to figure out the basics. And still, you’re mostly parroting a pamphlet Qrow has in his room about kids and grief. (You're pretty sure you've seen it, or one very similar, when you were the grieving child. It may as well be another life to you now.)

Yang seems a little soothed, her bottom lip poking out. "I don’t want to make anyone else sad," she says, quiet. It stands alone but you understand why she continues. “If no one else wants to talk about her.”

Your heart shatters in your chest. You start with "Yang," but you don't know what else to say. _What would you say to baby Raven?_ you ask yourself. She hides her face in your shirt. "People who love you want to help you with your feelings."

She doesn't say anything for a long moment, curling into you; you wish desperately that she didn't hurt this badly, you wish you could ease her pain. You’d take it all for her. "Do you want to get a special balloon? And…” You’re entirely improvising. The fact that you’re having a good idea is a shock for you. “We'll write happy things on it for your mom. I think she would've liked that."

“She really liked decorating,” Yang says, pausing to sniffle. “That would be nice.”

You’re quiet for a long moment as she starts to breathe easier. “Should I tell you a story about a time she decorated or do _you_ want to tell _me_ a story?” You boop her nose for the emphasis, and also just to see her smile again, even if it’s weak. She sits up, out of the half-hug, and even in the dim light you can see that you’ve caught her attention. You put your hand on your thigh so that she can take it if she wants to.

“Tell _me_ a story about her,” she answers. “Please?” You smile at her. Losing Summer could never be a good thing, but you’re bitterly glad that she’s mourning a good parent, instead of a bad one. That there’s anything to mourn in the first place.

“Okay, let me think of a good one. Summer…” There’s so much you want to say and you might get it all out someday, but your personal history of grief and trauma isn’t Yang’s responsibility to carry. Maybe you’ll talk to Qrow about the parts you don’t tell Yang. “In our first year of college, she was so upset that mine and Qrow’s birthday was after classes ended. She and Tai were leaving early, I think. She wanted to go home really bad, but on the day I thought she was going to leave, I woke up and our room was full of balloons and streamers and she had woken up early to make us pancakes.” You laugh so that you won’t cry. It had been the first time anyone celebrated your birthday with any enthusiasm, the first time you had even begun to think that your life could be a gift instead of a curse.

Yang’s watching you closely like she always does. “Mom never told me that story,” she says. “Did she take a picture?” Oh, Yang and her photos. You can kind of understand the impulse. She’s already grasped that her parents are actual people, instead of one-faceted heroes. If you were her, you’d want to know more about their life before you too.

“Maybe,” you tell her, ruffling her hair. “I’ll see if Qrow or I have it.” It might even be Tai, now that you think about it; you’d never ask him though. “You want a hug before you go to bed?” She nods, wrapping her small arms around you. You hold her as tightly as you can, hoping the affection conveys the depths of your love for her. _Summer, you were right. I know you know that but I’ll say it myself._ You’d never want to take a place that isn’t yours for Yang or Ruby, never want to try to fill those shoes. Still, every maternal instinct you’d rejected nearly seven years ago has made itself known.

“I love you,” Yang says, so quiet and small.

“I love you too,” you say back. You’ve gotten so much practice with the phrase in the last six months. She and Ruby are definitely Summer’s kids. “Do you think you can go to bed now?”

She nods, her head bumping your chin as she sits up. “Goodnight,” she whispers, and you say the same. You let your head fall back against the cushions of the couch. Comforting the kids is stressful. It’s not your specialty even when it comes to non-fragile and impressionable people. Still, you’re trying. And really, it’s surprising that Yang was crying at all. She’s not a teary kid, not the kind who seeks out comfort, never asked you to kiss it better. She’ll fall off the jungle gym, skin her knees, draw blood, and just want to get back onto the playground. You’ve only seen her ask for a band-aid with a sheepish smile.

You turn off the TV with a sigh. Sleep never comes easy but you still need to try. Hopefully you don’t stare at the ceiling for too long.

In the morning, you stumble out into the kitchen when you hear Yang and Ruby come out of their room. As you get the coffeepot going, you find the list of things Yang wants for her party left on the counter. It makes you smile. Her handwriting is, well, it’s obvious that she just finished first grade. You'll leave any revisions up to Tai, but you grab a pen from the counter and underline the balloons. You’re trying to be a person who keeps their promises, and there’s no one hurt more by a broken promise than a kid.

“I’ll go get party supplies from the dollar store,” Tai says, cleaning up the dishes from breakfast. You’re still sitting with Ruby, coaxing her into eating her veggies. You can hear Qrow and Yang bickering about shoes in the other room. “I need to get some stuff for my classroom anyway.”

 _I was under the impression that your classroom is a gym,_ you think very loudly instead of saying. “Okay,” you reply. “Hey, I know you’re already getting yellow balloons, but I talked to Yang yesterday about--” you glance to Ruby, whose grey eyes are fixed on you. “Um. Will you get a fancy white one? And if Ruby eats her carrots, a red one?” Ruby’s face lights up and she sticks a carrot in her mouth. You smile at her. “Three more bites and then we can go with Yang and Qrow to the park, okay?”

Ruby nods and finishes the stick before eating another. “It’s sunny,” she says. “Can I have my hat?”

“Yeah, of course,” you say, voice soft as you pull a stray bit of hair out of her face. She looks so much like Summer and it threatens to rip your heart out every day. “One more carrot, kiddo.” You look up and Tai tilts his head in a silent question. “Let’s talk about it in a second,” you offer. He nods and goes back to the list.

Ruby gets a high five when she finishes her food and you send her off to ask Qrow for her cute red bucket hat. Tai looks back over at you; you don’t even know how to explain your idea.

“So… Last night, Yang was crying,” you say, picking up Ruby’s plate and cup just to have something for your hands to do. Tai’s posture changes, shoulders stiffened and movement paused. “She misses Summer. I told her that I’d make sure she got a special balloon to write things on for her.”

He nods, slowly, and you move around him to get to the sink. You hate watching him think when you’re no longer guessing at his internal monologue. “That’s a good idea,” he says after a long moment. “I’ll get one for her and a red one for Ruby like you said.”

“Okay. Thanks.” You rinse the dishes and put them in the sink. He doesn’t say anything else. You wonder if you should offer more information or an explanation or anything at all to fill the silence. You don’t.

It’s easy to focus on the girls and their simplistic joy. You watch Yang jump off the monkey bars and put Ruby in the little bucket swing for Qrow to push while she shrieks gleefully. They take a nap in the afternoon and you do laundry while Qrow picks up around the house. Tai comes home with a bag of party supplies and offers you half a smile when he brings two nice balloons in. Comfort and contentment have become more familiar sentiments than you’ve ever known. Maybe being alive is kind of nice.

Your life is a constant game of trying to avoid thought spirals and sometimes failing. At least it took you a few days to actually fall into this one. You're hanging decorations for your daughter's birthday, with your brother, in your ex's house. You try to forget how surreal that is and you can't. Yang's birthday is historically not a good day for you. Like. Really, really not good. And it’s difficult to address, even to yourself, because for some reason, you don’t have the _treat serious things with seriousness_ function in your brain. It’s just not there. “Damn, I’m missing my annual hospital visit,” you say, trying to pass it off with a shitty half-laugh. It could be a joke. It’s not.

“What?” Qrow asks, his voice sharp in a way that makes you uncomfortable. You can see A Look on his face in your peripheral, but you don’t face him. You just pin the streamer to the wall. Yellow, Yang’s favorite color.

“A year ago today I was blacking out in my van,” you say. “And on our birthday. Vernal was so freaked out, she took me to the emergency room. And the year before that--”

“Raven.” He’s so serious and some still-selfish part of you hates it. Qrow used to follow along when you made your shared trauma something you could laugh at. He doesn’t like to do that nowadays, not when it’s only your trauma. Not when he barely spoke to you for six years and your lives took separate paths, and it was all your choice. You turn to look at him. His expression is softer, like he didn’t mean to be harsh. “What are you trying to tell me?”

That’s new, too. He makes you say things because he wasn’t there. He doesn’t already know. You’re doing your best. He is too. “On her birthday,” you say, slow. “And ours. I was fucked up a lot, but I…. it was different on those days.”

“Yeah,” he says. It’s a gentle nudge. He loves you.

“I’m glad I’m here. With you. And them. Instead of trying to kill myself with alcohol poisoning. That’s what I’m trying to say.” You cringe even as it’s coming out. It’s _true_ , but fuck, did you really have to start it off like that? Qrow starts laughing beside you, a strangled kind that’s more hurt than humor, and you know he’s thinking the same thing.

“Haven’t I--” he braces himself with a hand on the wall, trying to stop laughing. “I told you to cut that shit out, Raven!”

“I’m _trying_ ,” you say, an embarrassed laugh cutting you off, and it’s not like he doesn’t have the same urge to wrap everything painful into something funny. You know he understands. He tosses the package of streamers onto the table and wraps you in a hug.

“I love you. I’m glad you’re here too,” he murmurs. You bury your face in his shoulder. For a long moment, you stand together and just breathe. Something you gained over the past few months is that there’s no point in denying yourself this affection. Qrow needs it too. So do the kids. It’s okay that they need it, so it’s okay that you need it. You’re just a person. The two of you go back to decorating. You throw a punch at his shoulder as he walks away and miss on purpose.

“You know,” he says later, pausing between orange balloons. “When Yang was a baby and started crying in the middle of the night, I always got up to take care of her.” You remind yourself to breathe. He’s sharing something with you, not attacking you. “I was usually awake anyway. It reminded me of when you and I would be up all night for no reason,” he smiles at you, somehow still fond of every messy teenage self you’ve been. “It was nice to be with her and know that I still had something of you there.”

You nod slowly. No one is ever going to love you like your brother loves you. It’s just true. It’s hard to know what to say to something like that. “She was such a pretty baby,” you manage, just to show that you’re listening. “So was Ruby.”

Qrow laughs. “We all thought Ruby was going to grow out of her giant cheeks. I don’t think she will until after she hits puberty, at this point.” You laugh with him, because he’s probably right.

The two of you finish up decorating in a peaceful quiet. You’re reminded of how much you enjoy time with just the two of you. You’re reminded of how much you didn't need to leave the people who love(d) you. It doesn’t sting as much as it could.

After you get ready for bed, you grab the marker from the bookcase next to the window and uncap it to mark the calendar. The ink of an X joining all the rest of the days in July is satisfying to watch. A visual representation of progress is nice. Maybe part of you would rather be drinking yourself to sleep instead of using Well-Adjusted Strategies like melatonin and breathing exercises, but at least you know it’s worth it.

If you get soft for a second, you think about how much changes in six months. You think about how useless your own fear and stubbornness is. You think about how much you miss Summer. She’d be proud, you know, and it helps.

“Goodnight,” Qrow mumbles as you settle onto the mattress on the floor. “Love you.” You respond quietly, and actually manage to fall asleep without much trouble. It’s the little things in life, right? You’re grateful for it all.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Toddlers can talk your ear off and grade school children do not baby-talk. I won't soapbox but kids in fic deserve justice.  
> 2\. I'm an astrology lesbian, humor me, Tai is a Cancer and Yang is a Leo (that's canonical and I ALWAYS KNEW.) I love my sunny kids. (I also decided that Raven and Qrow were born on December 13th, so happy very belated birthday to my awful twins.)


End file.
